Angela Merkel to refugees: Integration is a must

BERLIN — Want to settle in Germany? Then learn the language, get accustomed to Western values, and find a job.

That is the tough-love message the German government sent out to the hundreds of thousands of refugees in the country with a new integration law, approved by the government Wednesday.

While critics describe the draft law, which will need to be ratified by parliament, as largely symbolic, the German government sold it as an assertive measure designed to reassure Germans about the integration of predominantly Muslim asylum-seekers into society.

“We say it clearly: We have learned from the past,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday morning, following a two-day government summit just outside Berlin, adding, “and we expect that people take the opportunities that we offer to integrate themselves.”

The draft law is a compromise drawn up by Merkel's Christian Democrats, its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, and the junior coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD).

“For the first time, Germany is proactively addressing those who come to us, instead of just watching what they're doing,” SPD chief Sigmar Gabriel said at a joint press conference with Merkel. “This is the great difference to the [German] immigration history of the last decades.”

The planned integration law, drawn up during all-night cabinet talks in April, is the government's response to the influx of refugees that reached a peak last fall and led to the emergence of the anti-migrant, anti-Islam Alternative für Deutschland party.

Merkel's conservatives hope the law will recast the party as a bastion of domestic security, imposing tougher conditions on those who move to Germany, but the SPD — deserted by voters in large numbers and facing the worst crisis in its post-war history — described the draft proposal as “a first step towards an immigration law," a long-held SPD demand that had been continually blocked by the conservatives, in particular the CSU.

If the draft becomes law, refugees would be able to qualify for permanent residency after five years, two years longer than at present — but only if they can prove elementary German language skills, if they have a job which covers “the largest part of their keep,” and if they take part in so-called “orientation courses” on German culture and society.

Refugees who fail to meet the requirements would face sanctions, such as having their benefits cut, as well as failing to secure permanent residency.

“Language, work, and saying 'Yes' to our system of values, these are the three crucial factors for integration,” German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said Wednesday.

But such demands are putting a strain on German resources.

“We hear from the institutions which are in charge of giving orientation courses that they lack both teachers and classroom space. There are waiting lists, and the institutions can’t keep up with creating additional courses,” Hannes Schammann, a professor of migration policy at the University of Hildesheim, told POLITICO.

Part of the problem is the planned law calling for the courses to be extended from 60 to 100 hours and be expanded in scope to cover topics such as gender equality.

Migration experts such as Schammann, however, doubt that these courses, whether they last for 60 or 100 hours, are comprehensive.

“Migration policy, like few other policy fields, is largely about symbolism. It’s about catering to ... the wish of the voter,” Schammann said. “Measures like the orientation courses are also intended to make sure that the population feels reassured, and that the gap between public opinion and actual policies is not getting too wide.”

Authors:

Related stories on these topics:

Gilford Smeterling

God what a joke. Sensible Germans who have “learned from history” can take the EUR 94 Billion price tag and triple it…. and that’s just as a starting point. Remember the Solisteuer? It turned into Perma-Steuer. They will do the same thing to you and your children with the integration costs . They’ll raise the retirement age again. Thank God I left Germany before Merkel’s insanity set in.

Posted on 5/25/16 | 6:34 PM CET

Tom Cullem

A day late and a dollar short, as the Americans say. Europe should have been doing this for the last 40 years. Horse now in next county.

Posted on 5/25/16 | 10:13 PM CET

Roman

“Welcome to the country which 70 years ago slaughtered millions of people. We’re going to teach you about democracy and human rights.”

Posted on 5/25/16 | 11:40 PM CET

Tom Cullem

“Migration policy, like few other policy fields, is largely about symbolism. It’s about catering to … the wish of the voter,” Schammann said. “Measures like the orientation courses are also intended to make sure that the population feels reassured, and that the gap between public opinion and actual policies is not getting too wide.”

Even though, quite clearly, the gap between public opinion and actual policies is already somewhere on the scale of America’s Grand Canyon.

Posted on 5/26/16 | 7:15 PM CET

Jim

Welcome to Holland.

Posted on 5/26/16 | 7:38 PM CET

Corni

Talk is cheap as Trump reminded us often in the last couple of months. God help Germans!

Posted on 5/26/16 | 10:46 PM CET

Mark Smith

“Angela Merkel to (Muslim) refugees: Integration is a must”=”Angela Merkel to Nazi: Integration is a must”.

If you have significant sacred value-beliefs than Other cultures with terror-genocide methodology for resolving these political/social differences how is this ‘integration’ possible given as Damascus clearly underlines it has not succeeded anywhere else.

Posted on 5/26/16 | 11:34 PM CET

Johann M. Wolff

Empty words (like the distribution of migrants through the EU, as none will stay in Romania).

Oh my Germany what had they (politicians) done to you ! !

Posted on 5/27/16 | 9:16 AM CET

Fixpir

“Then learn the language, get accustomed to Western values, and find a job. That is the tough-love message (…)”

I would love to know what Politico thinks what should be “normal” love, then. “Come in, don’t bother with the language, clutch on the values of your country of origin, and don’t bother to work, welfare state is there for you, my friend”???
That’s a real question, actually.

Shouldn’t that include some advice to feel free to repeat some Köln or Rotheram type of behaviour?

Posted on 5/28/16 | 5:23 PM CET

jrb

Great!… now isis is going to be driving the berlin metro trains! But great, max 100 hours to teach them a new language, no problem, these refugees have IQ of 160!